Safe Speed Forums

I have been following the development of potential Toll Roads ever since during the 1990s when I deduced that road safety was being used as an excuse to obstruct any alternatives. All three main parties are keen to demonstrate just how green they are and combating Global Warming. However, they all appear to support the continued introduction of traffic calming, ( mini-roundabouts etc. ) which increases carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50%, likewise 20 Mph Zones ( without humps or chicanes ) which add to emissions by 10%. The nastier potentially toxic pollutants are doubled by traffic calming.

The alleged road safety benefits are less than clear, heavily traffic calmed Burnley reported a 44% reduction in child deaths over the past seven years, yet Ribble Valley with minimal traffic calming also reported a fall of 42% despite being far away from any A&E department. The reduction in road deaths is a good thing, but may be mostly due to better paramedic ambulance services and now the air ambulance service. Better medical provision was introduced alongside traffic calming, it may be wrong to give traffic calming all the credit when its contribution may be minimal. I believe that casualties have been cut by 15% in the Borough of Barnet since they ripped out existing traffic calming, casualties for cyclists dropped by twice the London average.

It would appear that traffic calming has become a TB infested sacred cow for the eco-fascist leaning groups who were originally and still campaign for its introduction. It would appear that the eco-fascists cling to traffic calming in the belief that divers will be " irritated " out of their cars and use the train, at least a few anyway. If anyone had deliberately set out to design death traps for cyclists its doubtful whether they could have made a better job of it than traffic calming.


Getting back to Toll Roads, take the Ribble Valley for example, there were once two national speed limit routes into Preston, the direct A59 and through Longridge. The Longridge route now has a 40 Mph speed limit when it was safe to do 50 on most of the route. Similarly, the old A59 alternative route to the Whalley-Clitheroe by-pass has had the limit cut to 40 from 60, and many 40 sections have been reduced to an often ridiculous 30. I suspect that the busses struggle to keep time legally even though running on a 1960s timetable.

The Corporate Nazis in the civil service have been seriously planning toll roads for at least 20 years. In towns they use traffic calming to obstruct any direct route traffic might find as an alternative to toll roads. The safety fascists are making roads in towns almost totally impassable in decent time and now even TFL admits that it has been deliberately creating extra congestion under Labour's Livingstone.

It is interesting to note that almost all the scenes of recent fatal Knife Crime featured traffic calming or a 20 Mph speed limit. The installation of traffic calming is probably the key step towards a residential area becoming totally run down and lawless. By deterring regular through traffic from the streets criminals have more opportunities to commit crime without detection. Gangs of youths are more likely to congregate and cause trouble if they don't need to keep a sharp lookout for traffic. The evidence must show that almost all current semi-derelict slum areas have one thing in common, namely traffic calming installed at some point over the last 20 years. This must say something about the mentality of those alleged community leaders who campaign for the introduction of traffic calming. Take danger out of people's life ( particularly teenagers ) and they may replace it with something far worse.

The current main argument for imposing traffic calming is totally based on the NIMBY philosophy, ten bob fat cat property speculators desperately attempting to increase the theoretical value of their home. It would appear that they were under the impression that they actually own the road outside their mortgaged house and can dictate who can or can't use it, only a complete fool would buy a house with traffic calming on the street, especially if it was adjacent to an obstacle.

It would appear that traffic calming and the imposition of unrealistically low speed limits are being used to discourage drivers from using any route other than a potential future " Corporate Nazi " toll road, pay the toll or use more fuel and take twice as long to get there. People are already using far more fuel than they need to avoiding traffic calmed roads or unrealistically low speed limit routes, it also causes congestion on the main routes under pressure.

Traffic should flow though the town like blood in arteries, if the main route becomes restricted, traffic flows on the most convenient alternative route. Drivers are likely to " speed " in inappropriate places to make up time lost through traffic calming or sections of road with ridiculously low speed limits. This leads to more requests for traffic calming or lower speed limits from people who formerly had a relatively quiet section of road.

The result of alleged " green " transport policy is that the Corporate Nazis can engage in a spot of Corporate Ethnic Cleansing. If you can't afford the tolls or the fuel price you are forced to move home. No wonder city centre property developers support the introduction of the Manchester congestion charge. You can also bet that the politicians all have shares in the companies likely to benefit. There is a fortune to be made in the form of private tax for the in car equipment. The stock market parasites will make an imaginary fortune with a private toll road operating company plugged directly into the treasury. Its all false economic growth which by increasing the cost of living makes the British worker less competitive in the global economy. None of the current UK politicians can comprehend the fact that toll roads will put the relative basic human rights of the population back into the 18th century just for the sake of false profit.

Perhaps the government have no option but to proceed the eco-fascists favorite tool for corporate ethnic cleansing, Spy in the Sky road charging. Otherwise the Corporate Multinational Cartel could close key parts of UK industry. Of course nobody will notice that its basically a key fascist Big Brother policy because the alleged left wing Green Party support it. Many Corporate Nazi measures like Bin Tax and related fines for putting the wrong type of rubbish in your bin are also supported by the " greens " likewise the PFJ left love the smoking ban. Perhaps you will need a biometric ID card to register your Spy in the Sky in car equipment.

As for Spy in the Sky road charging technology its just another massively expensive and needlessly complicated IT project for the stock market " tech sector " to parasite on, its all potential false economic growth which increases the divide between rich and poor. It is perhaps hardly surprising to find that Graham Stringer was one of the Labour rebels calling for a leadership election, one of his main bones of contention is the proposed Manchester congestion charge. New investment in the infrastructure is tied to a road pricing plan, which even without actual satellite Spy in the Sky (overhead gantries with simple electronic tags for vehicles ) will cost billions to introduce and maintain. As with most government projects under PFI its just a virtual welfare state for the stock market parasites.

And everybody who died of lung cancer wore shoes. Post hoc ergo procter hoc is one of the most common logical falicies

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It is a fact in our area though, that all the traffic calming measures, except one, that I can think of are in now deprived areas and some of the once prosperous towns, that now have traffic calming, are going down hill while the presently thriving towns still don't have traffic calming and their high streets remain as they were in the sixties and seventies. Our road has speed bumps (which don't seem to slow the traffic much) but the noise from passing trailers and lorries wakes you up and houses that were built in the late 19th century now, suddenly, have cracked walls from the vibration.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Great post Brossen99. Some good points raised there.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Just spotted this clip on YouTube, shows how effective traffic calming is a slowing down the average car driver, obviously makes the road more dangerous.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YaYVCeK1L ... -fresh+div

Another interesting Link

http://www.greatwyrley.org.uk/survey.aspx

That's unprovable nonsense.

How does that make the road more dangerous? The video shows a lot of car drivers driving at an inappropriate speed for the conditions.

What speed are they driving and what makes it inappropriate? It appears to be a 30MPH limit, I doubt if any of them are exceeding 15-20MPH.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That's a problem with bumps - no standardisation, no indication of what is a the correct speed to cross them.

Some pretty worn shocks evident on some of the cars in the video

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

You think approaching a pedestrain crossing at 30mph is sensible? Within the law even?

That video just shows how stupid being behind the wheel can make some people; I mean there's signs telling drivers there's a raised pedestrian crossing ahead, there's a wacking great hump in the road and still some tw*ts try and motor over it like it's not there!

What's more the idiot in the merc that appears first seems to have just overtaken the driver in the little yellow car who had slowed to the right speed to take the hump at and is half in the other side of the road going way too fast for the hump, talk about total and utter lack of forethought! He's probably getting mad that the guy in front has slowed, is thinking "GRRR GRRR GRRR GET OUT OF MY WAY!", has put his foot down with no thought whatsoever as to why the guy has slowed, gone round him and then discovered why slowing down there was a good idea.

Terrible driving!

Some of the humps round by us in 30MPH limits are unapproachable at anything over 5MPH without serious upset to passengers. 30mph is acceptable to approach a zebra if the area is clear of pedestrians, that is what observation is all about.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Tell me about it, I've got one outside my house that people are constantly hitting too fast and then gouging out the road with their sump.

Still I understand that if the council took it out then more people would go down my street like nutters.

That's why I say introduce a 20 limit, take the humps out, replace them with avereage speed cameras in places like this.

We've got plenty around here.
They don't slow the buses down...just the cars...they don't slow trucks down either.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Well there you go, another argument for ripping them up and putting in speed detection devices instead.

Why any driver who wants a smooth ride wouldn't want this is beyond me.

Lower emmissions, more relaxed driving, less noise, less damage to cars, it's win win!

Many people object to average speed cameras because of their secondary spying function. "We know where you are."

What other speed detection devices could you suggest that don't have this drawback?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

If you exceed the limit the data regarding your registration and speed isn't stored but a mini gun mounted int he camera pole takes your tyres out?

Maybe a minigun mounted on the roof of my A4 could take out weepej and all the other morons who think that your car will instantly crash the moment you go 1mph over the speed limit...

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Magistrates rule #1: "Never let justice get in the way of a conviction."

When have I ever said this? Are you just making it up?